To be specific, Cheney isn’t just receiving faulty intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program so much as he’s demanding it (via Raw Story):
One former senior intelligence official is particularly concerned by private briefings that Vice President Dick Cheney is getting from former Office of Special Plans (OSP) Director, Abram Shulsky.
“Vice President Cheney is relying on personal briefings from Shulsky for current intelligence on Iran,” said this intelligence official.
Shulsky, a leading Neoconservative and member for the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), headed the shadowy and secretive Department of Defense’s OSP in the lead-up to the Iraq war — helping to locate intelligence that would support the Bush administration’s case for war with Iraq.
Yes, that good old Office of Special Plans, Doug Feith’s special project, the one that “hatched” all the intel the Bush adminsitration needed to sell justify the Iraq invasion. You can kill it, you can cut it up into tiny pieces and flush it down the toilet, you can even nuke the damn thing, but it just won’t stay dead:
Military and non-military intelligence sources have also raised worries over what some describe to as “the Iran group” and others as “the Iran working group” and still others as a “cabal” operating out of the Pentagon.
A recent article by Laura Rozen for the Los Angeles Times revealed the Pentagon has created yet another Office of Special Plans-type body called the Directorate for Iran, or the Iranian Directorate.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the initials for the Pentagon’s Iranian Directorate are the same as for that other uber-conservative chestnut, the theory of Intelligent Design, because once again, it appears the intelligence is being designed to fit the policy: to Bomb Iran!!!
(Cont.)
Several foreign policy experts, who wish to remain anonymous, have expressed serious concern that much like the OSP, the ID is manipulating, cherry picking, and perhaps even — as some suspect — cooking intelligence to lead the U.S. into another conflict, this time with Iran.
“Cheney distrusts the information being disseminated by CIA on Iran,” said one former senior intelligence official. “The reports assembled by the Iranian Directorate at the Pentagon differ significantly from the analysis produced by the Intelligence Community. The Pentagon Iranian Directorate relies on thin and unsupported reporting from foreign sources.”
Of course the Vice President distrusts the intelligence from CIA. He doesn’t want the truth. He can’t handle the truth. Lies, falsehoods, inappropriate inferences, poorly sourced information and misleading statements on the other hand, those he can work with. It’s his proper metier, so to speak, as these remarks after Lamont’s primary victory indicate:
And as I look at what happened yesterday, it strikes me that it’s a perhaps unfortunate and significant development from the standpoint of the Democratic Party, that what it says about the direction the party appears to be heading in when they, in effect, purge a man like Joe Lieberman, who was just six years ago their nominee for Vice President, is of concern, especially over the issue of Joe’s support with respect to national efforts in the global war on terror.
The thing that’s partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.
And when we see the Democratic Party reject one of its own, a man they selected to be their vice presidential nominee just a few short years ago, it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today if that’s becoming the dominant view of the Democratic Party, the basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won’t — we can’t be.
Yes, Democrats sure do enable all the “al-Qaida types.” Especially all the ones in Iran, right Dick? The same ones you can’t wait to bomb the holy crap out of. Never mind that Al Qaeda is a Sunni orgnaization that is actively working to attack Shi’ites in Iraq. Can’t get too nuanced when discussing what steps to take in the never ending (but always just about to be won) War on Terror. Why, if we let the truth in the door, there’s no telling what wars might not get started!
Project for a New American Century